The debate takeaways

With Donald Trump's campaign engulfed in crisis, the second presidential debate promised a clash of grand proportions. The confrontation did not entirely live up to that billing, but Clinton and Trump vented their vast differences over a revealing hour and a half. Some of our key takeaways:

Clinton endured nuclear attack
Trump had long threatened to go after Clinton for her husband's infidelities, and had often accused her of enabling Bill Clinton's transgressions - but he had never said these things to Clinton's face.

On Sunday night, he crossed that line. Claiming that Clinton had intimidated women who accused her husband of assault, Trump told her she "should be ashamed of herself".

But in the end, a charge long seen as the most incendiary Trump could offer echoed for only a few minutes. Clinton opted not to counter-attack, taking the lower-risk course of saying that much of Trump's tirade had been false, and quoting Michelle Obama's case for avoiding retaliation in kind: "When they go low, you go high."

Trump solved none of his problems
Trump entered the debate as the most disliked presidential nominee in the history of polling, seen by most voters as biased against women and minorities and as lacking the temperament to be commander in chief. Shifting those perceptions is his overwhelming task in the race - as it has been for months - and it is unlikely that he accomplished that on Sunday.

He expressed no contrition for virtually any of the statements and actions that have alienated voters, from denigrating a federal judge in racial terms to mocking a reporter's physical handicap. The lone and partial exception came in Trump's brief apology for crudely bragging about sexual assault in a 2005 recording: Trump said he regretted his comments but described them as "locker-room talk".

Trump made bad problems worse
On defence for most of the evening, Trump repeatedly widened his political vulnerabilities with offhand and ill-considered comments.

Criticised for demeaning a former Miss Universe, Trump derided her as "no Girl Scout" and denied having urged people to view a "sex tape," though he did exactly that on Twitter. He bluntly contradicted his running mate, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, in his approach to Syria. As opponents accused him of coddling foreign dictators and aspiring to unconstitutional powers, Trump said outright that if he were president, Clinton would be behind bars.

And Trump admitted in response to a direct question that he had used a massive business loss in the 1990s to avoid paying federal income taxes for years - a tactic Clinton has long accused him of exploiting. Trump has now confirmed that charge.

Clinton stuck to a safe script
She rarely ad-libbed and did not interrupt. She sprang no surprise attacks and let Trump off the hook several times as he plainly struggled.

Instead, Clinton coolly prosecuted the case against Trump that she has offered all along, calling him unfit for the presidency and describing his candidacy as built on hate. "He owes our country an apology," she said. In a rare off-the-cuff remark, she said Trump's campaign was "exploding," an assessment few Republicans would dispute.

Trump isn't going anywhere
Trump's defiant performance may not stabilise his candidacy, but it will likely put to rest frenzied speculation over the weekend that he might be forced from the presidential race. Facing abandonment by dozens of important Republican officials, he bucked calls to withdraw and instead offered a performance his core supporters will cheer loudly.

©2016 The New York Times News Service